Contemporary Entanglements of Religion and Secularity

Wayne Glausser

Discusses how the author's diagnosis of terminal cancer affected his research

Something Old, Something New

Contemporary Entanglements of Religion and Secularity

Wayne Glausser

Description

Something Old, Something New: Contemporary Entanglements of Religion and Secularity offers a fresh perspective on debates surrounding religious and secular thinking. In each chapter, Wayne Glausser focuses on a topic of contemporary relevance in which something old (the sacrament of extreme unction, Greek rhetorical tropes, scholastic theology) entangles with something new (psilocybin therapy for the dying, the New Atheism, cognitive science). Glausser uses the term "entanglement" to describe his distinctive approach to the relationship between religion and secularity. The concept of entanglement refers to a contentious but oddly intimate relationship in which secular ideas compete with corresponding religious convictions, but neither side wins by displacing the other. As traditional religious knowledge and values come into conflict with their secular counterparts, the old ideas undergo stress and adaptation, but the influence works in both directions. Whether they do so consciously or unconsciously, entangled secularists engage with and sometimes borrow from older paradigms they believe they have surpassed. Something Old, Something New takes an unusual approach to this popular debate, and offers a new perspective in the conversation between believers and secularists. This is a book that theists, atheists, agnostics, and everyone still searching for the right label will find respectful but provocative.

Something Old, Something New

Contemporary Entanglements of Religion and Secularity

Wayne Glausser

Author Information

Wayne Glausser is Professor of English at DePauw University. He is the author of Locke and Blake: A Conversation across the Eighteenth Century, the Cultural Encyclopedia of LSD, and a number of essays on literary and interdisciplinary topics, including the recent "Limbo, Pluto, Soprano: Negative Capability in Three Underworlds."

Something Old, Something New

Contemporary Entanglements of Religion and Secularity

Wayne Glausser

Reviews and Awards

"There is a tendency in contemporary life to privilege the scientific analysis of every aspect of human life, and to discount philosophical, artistic, and religious thinking as archaic or irrelevant in a scientific age. As Glausser shows, this is a profound mistake. In a series of excursions from Starbucks coffee cups and the New Atheism to LSD and the Seven Deadly Sins, he demonstrates the intricate threads that entangle seemingly unrelated aspects of popular, political, and scientific culture. Be prepared for a book that will surprise, delight, and even annoy you - in a most remarkable and rewarding way."--Kenneth R. Miller, Professor of Biology, Brown University

"I admire the voice that I hear running through this book, naming and probing a whole range of tangles chapter by chapter. That voice is as honest and even-handed as the subject requires. It's perhaps at its most persuasive when, from a perspective won from a life-time of working with the young, it fosters a melancholy that is appreciated in maturity."--Dayton Haskin, Professor of English, Boston College

"With insight, nuance, and evident good humor, Glausser analyzes intertwining secular and religious claims about cosmic origins, the functioning of the brain and awareness, and the meaning of life and death, among others. Alternately down to earth and erudite, consistently well researched and meticulously documented, Something Old, Something New guides the reader on an analytical journey through atheism, faithful science, the editions of the Norton Anthology, declarations of Pope Francis, the Seven Deadly Sins, and last rites - both religious and psychedelic. A tour de force."-- Neal Abraham, Five College Professor of Physics, Whately, MA

Something Old, Something New

Contemporary Entanglements of Religion and Secularity

Wayne Glausser

From Our Blog

When Stephen Hawking died recently, a report echoed around the internet that he had rejected atheism in his last hours and turned to God. The story was utterly false; Hawking experienced no such deathbed conversion. Similar spurious accounts circulated after the deaths of other notoriously secular figures, including Christopher Hitchens and, back in the day, Charles Darwin.